Landers gets a team of his own

Jim Fenton

Wednesday

Mar 26, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 26, 2008 at 10:53 PM

The former Brockton High School graduate has served as an assistant at Stonehill, Wesleyan University and Nichols College.

The premature end of his college football career left a void in the life of Mike Landers a decade ago. After serving as a captain at Brockton High School and earning a spot on the Georgia Tech roster for two years as a walk-on, Landers was forced to stop playing due to a shoulder injury.

He returned to Brockton and enrolled at Bridgewater State College, but there was something missing without football.

“After football, I was in a rut,” said Landers, a 1994 Brockton High graduate. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do. It was hard commuting to Bridgewater State. I didn’t have football in my life.

“Then my father (Steve), in his great wisdom, said, ‘Why don’t you go over to Stonehill (College) and be a volunteer coach and try it?’”

Landers decided to give coaching a try and wound up joining the Stonehill staff of head coach Connie Driscoll in 1998 while studying at BSC.

It turned out to be a move that gave Landers a career path to pursue.

“After that first week,” said Landers, “I said to myself, ‘Man, this is for me. I don’t care what I get paid. This is something I want to do.’”

Landers was an assistant at Stonehill until 2003, was an assistant coach at Wesleyan University in Connecticut for one year and spent the last three years as an assistant at Nichols College.

Now, 10 years after entering the coaching business while still a college student, Landers has a football program to call his own.

The 32-year-old Landers was hired last week as the head coach at Mount Ida College in Newton where he is also the coordinator of the Life Skills program for athletes.

“I feel like I’ve found a home,” said Landers, a 2001 graduate of BSC. “I think my goal has always been to help young people. Being a head coach is a great vehicle since you are charged with the great responsibility of directing them to the next step.

“I like small college athletics. I’m not looking to be a Div. 1 head coach. You get to know kids better at this level and this is where I want to be.”

Landers, who was the class president at Brockton High when he was a senior, chased the dream of playing big-time college football.

He arrived at Georgia Tech without a scholarship and made the roster as a special teams player and defensive back.

Before the shoulder injury, which originally occurred when he was a junior in high school, ended his career, Landers was a regular on special teams.

“It was a great opportunity for me to do what I do now,” said Landers. “It was difficult being a walk-on. As a walk-on, they’re not obligated to you by a scholarship. To be on the team, you have to fight.

“Brockton High and Coach (Armond) Colombo prepared me for that, that toughness you need, and I’m going to carry that over to Mount Ida.”

When the playing career ended and Landers discovered coaching, it didn’t take long for him to get serious about the profession.

Landers was the wide receivers coach, linebacker coach and co-defensive coordinator at Stonehill under Driscoll and Rich Beal. At Wesleyan, he was the coordinator of the front eight and linebackers coach and was the defensive coordinator at Nichols under former Hanover resident Bill Carven.

“I had a great experience at Stonehill,” said Landers, whose mother, Roly, is an assistant athletic director at Massasoit Community College. “I learned a wealth of my football knowledge from the people there, Rich Beal and Brian Hauser (the defensive coordinator). They taught me the Xs and Os, how to organize a program.

“You learn from everyone you coach with. Rich Beal was extremely organized and showed me how to treat a staff. Connie gave me my first shake and showed me college athletics is not just the sports aspect.

“Billy Carven, who went to Nichols, showed me how to build a program like a family. Frank Hauser (the head coach at Wesleyan) is one of the smartest men I’ve known, and Coach Colombo, what he did at Brockton High, I’m so proud of that program.”

Landers will pool all of the knowledge that he has gained at various stops and put together his own program.

Mount Ida, which was 3-7 last season, began playing football in 1999 and has had winning records twice. The Mustangs will join the North Atlantic Conference in 2009.

“We want to win championships and we want everyone to graduate,” said Landers. “I want to use football as a vehicle to teach them about things that will come up in life, like losing a job, things like that. I want to teach them that no matter what, as long as you get up breathing and have rocks to throw in a rock fight, you have a chance.

“I’ve sat down with the players and told them we will have a 2.7 grade point average. Anyone below that will be pulling us down. We’re going to be very much involved in academics, and if you don’t get grades, you won’t play.”

Landers has recruiting to do and a staff to hire, but he can’t wait to be on the sidelines to work as a head coach for the first time in September.

“I’m eager to get into the Xs and Os,” he said. “I’m excited about where we’re going as a program. We’re building a family here.”

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